Ruraltown Long Term Care

Forty people live here. That is the first thing to understand about the place, and it shapes everything else: this is a residence with clinical support, not a ward with visiting hours.

The building is single story, which means no elevators and no resident stranded on a floor. It shares the Cedar Street campus with the hospital, connected by a covered walkway that earns its keep every February.

What a day looks like

Nurses are on the floor at every hour, and aides who have worked here long enough to know that Marvin takes his coffee before anyone speaks to him and that Doris wants the blinds open at six.

Meals come off a window rather than a bell, so early risers eat early and late sleepers are not woken to sit in front of cold eggs. There is usually something scheduled in the afternoon, and nobody is required to go to it. Cards, music, the raised garden beds out back in summer, the third graders who come over near Christmas, and a good deal of porch sitting.

Our therapy staff works with residents on keeping what they still have. Walking to the dining room instead of being wheeled, managing buttons, getting to the bathroom alone at night. Those sound small written down. They are most of what independence consists of.

Being next to the hospital

A resident who needs imaging, a blood draw, or an emergency physician walks or rolls through a corridor. No ambulance, no transfer paperwork, no four hours in an unfamiliar waiting room. For anyone living with dementia, not being moved is itself a significant kindness.

Respite and end of life

We take short respite stays so a husband or a daughter who has been doing this alone can sleep for a week. Ask about it before you are past the point of asking.

When a resident is dying they stay here, with the staff who know them, supported by hospice partners we have worked alongside for years. Nobody is moved at the end.

Visiting

Come when you like. There is no sign-in window, no time limit, no restriction on grandchildren, and dogs are welcome if they behave. If you want to turn up at six in the morning and drink coffee with your mother, that is not an exception we are making for you. That is the rule.

The one thing we do ask: stay home if you are running a fever or have a new cough. A respiratory virus moves through a building like this quickly and it does real harm. Call instead and we will put the phone to their ear.

How it came to be ours

The building opened in 1974 as Cedar View Manor, owned and run by the Dolezal family across two generations. By 2016 the paperwork, the inspections, and the staffing requirements had outgrown what a family operation could carry, and the realistic options were sale or closure. Closure would have scattered forty residents across three counties.

Demonstration Healthcare bought it that October and kept every member of the nursing staff. The name changed in 2018. Not much else did.